Thoughts on Beacon — About a month ago, we released a new feature called Beacon to try to help people share information with their friends about things they do on the web. We've made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we've made even more with how we've handled them.

Zuckerberg's Mea Culpa, Not Enough — Update: Frankly, I am myself getting sick and tired of repeating myself about the all-important "information transmission from partner sites" aspect of Beacon. That question remains unanswered in Zuckerberg's blog post, which upon second read is rather scant on actual privacy information.

Zuckerberg Apologizes, Allows Facebook Users to Evade Beacon — Mark Zuckerberg has produced a symphony of contrition in a blog post today about Facebook's Beacon feature, which initially sent information on users' Web purchases to their friends unless they specifically blocked the disclosure of each purchase.

Internet Explorer 8 — Just as he was the first to talk about IE7, Bill Gates kept the tradition alive and discussed IE8 at the Mix 'n Mash event here on campus yesterday. Bill was talking to some bloggers about IE.Next and called it IE8, the same way we do here in the IE team hallway.

Google on the iPhone: Fast and Fluid — We all know that using the web on mobile phones can be a challenge sometimes. Compared to our personal computers, the screens are smaller, it's more difficult to navigate and enter text, the network connections are slower, and the browsers lack many of the features we've become accustomed to.

Google Announces launch of iPhone Application — Today, Google announced the release of a new iPhone application that integrates its multiple services into a single interface, making it easy for iPhone users to find, use and switch between Google search, Gmail, Calendar, Reader, and more.

AN OPEN LETTER TO SAM SETHI — Please Note: This is an open letter to Sam Sethi, Founder and CEO of Blognation. I have elected to write this letter after having been one of the principal Blognation authors since August of this year. In all that time I have not received the pay promised …

Announcing Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate (RC) — Today we're making available the release candidate (RC) of Windows Vista SP1 via Microsoft Connect, and tomorrow subscribers to TechNet and MDSN will have access to those RC bits too. In addition, the RC will be available to the public next week via Microsoft's Download Center.

Cellphone could be boarding pass, too — Continental Airlines passengers in Houston will be able to board flights using just a cellphone or personal-digital assistant instead of a regular boarding pass in a three-month test program launched Tuesday at Bush Intercontinental Airport.

OpenID 2.0...Final(ly)! — While its certainly been a long process in the making, we're now quite excited to announce OpenID Authentication 2.0 and OpenID Attribute Exchange 1.0 as final specifications ("OpenID 2.0″). This morning was the closing day of the Internet Identity Workshop …

Youths who lost homes in wildfires given iPods — Apple donates popular devices — More than 100 high school students in the Poway school district who lost homes in the October wildfires have received a surprise gift - iPods donated by Apple. — Kari Afshari, 15, a sophomore at Rancho Bernardo High …

House vote on illegal images sweeps in Wi-Fi, Web sites — The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including "obscene" cartoons and drawings—or face fines of up to $300,000.